Dell hits all the wrong keys – again Dell isn’t having much luck with keyboards this summer. The computer giant admitted Friday that some of its XPS One machines have been wrongly shipped to the UK with US keyboards. We were alerted to Dell’s latest embarrassing keyboard blunder after El Reg reader Chris told us about a friend who recently bought a Dell XPS One …
and consequently I still have to type " when I want @.
And " when I want " when I'm at work.
You would think that I could just change my typeset to UK, but for some reason my OS likes to revert to it's US roots... maybe it's homesick or something.. who knows.
at least the alphanumeric ones are all in the same place :o/
What? No DIY instructions from Dell on how to remove keys and rewire the keyboard??
When one of the F2 key hinges snapped after 4 days on my brand new Inspiron laptop, Dell sent me a replacement keyboard with a URL to some instructions on how to remove the keyboard and fit the replacement. The instructions involved dismantling the brand new machine and fiddling about with delicate-looking ribbon cables which I decided against. A tiny drop of superglue soon fixed the problem.
"However, the computer retailer couldn't help and told him to contact Dell direct about the cock-up. "
Wrong!
Under UK law, as PC World sold the item, it is up to PC World to correct it, the customer should NEVER have to contact the manufacturer for faulty goods.
Then again, pay peanuts.....
Having used US layout here at work in the UK (out of choice - happened to have some machines that came with them), I actually prefer the layout to the UK one (the only snag is no pound key, so I have to spell it out or cut'n'paste it), especially for UNIX/Linux systems. Trying to find cheap US keyboards here in the UK is next to impossible though - I buy 3 or 4 of them at a time whenever they appear on UK retail sites...
i'm just amazed to hear that a US company actually knows other countries exist!
now yanks - for your next challenge see if you can design a web form which disnae throw up an error and tell me i'm only allowed to use 'letters' when i enter my name [coz it has an accented character]. because, guess what? - there are other languages on the planet apart from 'merkin english' as well!
Dell is like a French car. If it works and stays in one piece it's a pretty good thing to have (CV5!). But unfortunately fairly regularly you get a blooper which tells you that 2+2=blue screen+(smoke x new fuse). My Dell has been a right little trooper (apart from having to manually percussively adjust the case to fit a new graphics card) after nearly 5 years, but friends have had Dell's which passed on to Silicon Heaven after just 1.
The only major problem I had was the keyboard. Which I replaced with a superiorer one anyway. Umm. Not sure what my point was. Be lucky, I guess.
Paris, because I would like to see her @
Note, that is Alt+0163 on the numeric keypad.
On my laptop, Alt+Fn+0163 on the virtual numeric keypad also works. The normal number keys don't.
Another thing, if you open the Windows Character Map (if it is installed - usually under Accessories), and click on a character in the grid, it will show you the Alt+ number combination to generate it. Useful for doing things like ½ (0189) and © (0169) when using software that doesn't have other ways of generating them.
Am surprised that no-one has pointed out that Apple supply all their English language machines with the " and @ reversed. For the UK version they do include a £ key, which is nice, but then you spend ages looking for the damn # key.
And I recently had the privilege to use a French AZERTY keyboard on a Mac laptop. Who in their right mind swaps the W with the Z ? Why is the M to the right of the L? And why are the punctuation marks are all over the place? The Japanese keyboard makes more sense!
Oh yes. Those were great for playing Doom, the cursor keypad was arranged in a true cross instead of that stupid inverted T. I had a lot of fun mapping those.
Keytronics made those IIRC. I actually managed to get one non-Gateway branded, it was grey and ugly and had some other minor differences that I forget now.
Windows key? Oh yeah, the key that when you hit it by accident (while playing Doom, or maybe it was Quake) kicked you back into the desktop and got you killed. I found a program that would disable it! Almost never use it myself.
I actually have two or three of those keyboards left over from work. Grabbed them before they threw them away, knew I'd never see their like again. Of course I have AT-to-PS/2 adaptors too. :)
Hey, did you know you could remap so you couldn't remap them any more? Did that once by accident by reversing the sequence, I think I remapped both ctrl keys out of existence. Was kind of embarrassing, I couldn't even ctrl-alt-reset the keyboard. Fortunately I managed to dig up a copy of the utility Gateway used to send with them and copied the programming from another keyboard, or maybe it had a reset function. *whew*
...is the somewhat bizarrely named IBM/Lenovo "Preferred Keyboard" - it's the best, no nonsense keyboard out there that I've come across, you can't go wrong with it.
I just thouht that, whilst we were on the subject of keyboards, I'd chuck in my tuppence worth.
The UK model can be purchased here:
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3HW7
(And no, I don't work for any company that would benefit if you were to all go out an buy one tomorrow!)
Hmm :) Couldn't you just use http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/ (KeyTweak) to remap the key combinations? For example, my right ALT key is now a back button so I can browse without waking the SO. (My Toshiba laptop has the loudest mouse buttons I've ever heard, and when you're lying on your side it's hard to navigate to the back button with the trackpad.)
If we are upgrading our computer every three years , what are you doing the other 2 years with you computer budgets?, Me , a new high back office chair , better mouse [ logitec trackman wheel ] , hi def monitor, AND a keyboard i like [ type matrix EZR-2080- dvorak ] I mean really , why buy comps and put them in closets to justify your it budget? Do your staff a favor and buy some productivity comforts .
I won't touch Dell with a 10 foot barge pole. They are overpriced, you can never be sure if the product is going to be faulty or not as more than one time Dell have been caught selling kit knowing it was faulty, and their customer service is so crap that they closed a part of their customer forum so that they did not have to have to see the flood of complaints about their lack of service.
A friend of mine was looking at a ew gaming PC loking at a Dell with a bundled low end video card and a 40Gb HD. We were able to spec up a PC using far better components for 1/2 the Dell price using retails stores!
My employer went through a computer hardware and support reappraisal not so long ago. Dell were the bottom of the heap.
PC World? That is possibly the worst IT retailer on the planet bar none (IMHO). Over the years I have sampled the delights of DSG and consistently found them wanting.
I am astounded that they are still trading, they arn't that cheap, the staff in the main are somewhere between brain dead and incompetent and th a counre customer service is truly dreadful.
It is said that a country gets the government it deserves, likewise with technology retailers too!
The reason that PC World would have advised the purchaser to contact Dell is that they don't hold stock of spare parts from the manufacturers - so any replacement keyboards etc will have to be ordered from said manufacuturer. Now although PC World sell Dell machines they don't provide any support - Dell do, so any customer with any fault with any Dell machine has to call them for help.
I think that the person that got the Logitech keyboard from PC World got a good deal!
I have had US Keyboards supplied with my computers for some years now.
Mind you that is because here in New Zealand we now have more in common with the USA than England/Britain. Your may recall about 1970 you went into the Common Market and told us to get stuffed .etc, etc.
Peace be with you, and with her
I recently bought a Dell Vostro 1510 - BIG mistake.
They supplied it with a non UK BS Standard keyboard - where the \ key is down the bottom right - between / and shift. It should be down the left between shift and Z.
Dell are refusing to do anything about it - they admit that they are supplying keyboards into the UK that do not meet the British Standard. Their arrogance has to be seen to be believed - I am currently trying to get a full refund from them - blood and stone come to mind. As a heavy business user I'll ensure that many Dell orders will be lost because of this - they deserve it
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